Successful movements also need an organisational model that allows them to keep growing.

I might find myself standing, transfixed, by the roadside, watching a sparrowhawk hunting among the bushes, astonished that other people could ignore it. But they might just as well be wondering how I could have failed to notice the new V6 Pentastar Sahara that just drove past.

Immense wealth translates automatically into immense environmental impacts, regardless of the intentions of those who possess it.

Places that have become agricultural deserts, trashed by giant corporations, could be reforested, drawing carbon dioxide from the air on a vast scale. The ecosystems of land and sea could recover, not just in pockets but across great tracts of the planet.

Elections are an enduring spectacle of free India, and have provided foreign journalists with the opportunity to remind the world that India remains the world's largest democracy.

Americans are fed up with how things are going in the country right now. They see more job losses, rising debt and plummeting home sales. They feel let down by a government that passes one 2,000-page, trillion-dollar law after another instead of focusing on addressing the problems Americans worry about every day.

While the debate over banned books usually seems to happen just outside the gates of government, it takes on a new danger and urgency when legislators get involved. Their actions cause voices to be silenced both inside and outside the books. That's un-American.

In my view, it is important that our national government exercise leadership to improve the resiliency of the entire nation in the face of continuing extreme weather.